A Note from the Creators

Hello our dear readers! We hope you have enjoyed keeping up with Beatrix and her blog. We guess you figured out that Beatrix was not really the author of this post, and the masterminds are actually two college students named Kristina and Kathryn. We hope you learned some things about Beatrix that you did not know before and that the description of a selection of her books have encouraged you to read some of her adorable stories. What did you find most interesting? We would love it if you would comment on any of the posts you read and if you have a questions for "Beatrix" we would love to answer them.

We also would like to mention that because Beatrix was not the real author of the blog, anything in quoatation marks was a direct quote from Beatrix's journal The Journal of Beatrix Potter, 1891-1897. The only exception is the caterpillar quote which was attained from The Magic Years of Beatrix Potter. So while we tried to stay true to Beatrix's personality and writing style please keep in mind that this is only an interpretation of the author based on weeks of research.

As much as we enjoy making blogs, we also saw this blog as an opportunity to enhance our future career goals. Please take the time to read them below!

Kristina Koford:
After graduating I plan to become a librarian. I view this blog “by Beatrix Potter,” as part of a larger project in which librarians in collaboration with teachers would create several blogs by deceased authors. The purpose is to educate the public, both children and adults, about a certain author, in this case Beatrix Potter. For this project to be successful, the librarian would need to contact schools and teachers to let them know about it. They should also send information on how teachers can use these websites with their classes- not just for learning about the author, but also computer and Internet literacy. Many students may not have much experience with blogs, and this one would be a friendly introduction to them and help them to learn about their structure and format (how to find past posts, how to find all articles labeled with a particular tag, etc). On a personal level,
doing this project as a blog, helped me to learn more about this type of information medium. I read blogs daily, but do not write any. This was an educational introduction of what this medium is capable of accomplishing.

Kathryn Van Dyke:
After graduating I plan to become an elementary school teacher and two of my primary goals are to encourage a lifelong love of reading and instill a sense of discovery within my students. I envisioned this blog as applicable in an elementary classroom in which students use technology to learn about a particular author or series of books. By discovering the information on their own and not being told directly by the teacher, the students will feel more interested in the topic/author because they are an essential part of the learning process. This blog also gives students the opportunity to read and strengthen their literacy proficiency without feeling intimidated or bored by the monotonous details of some biographies. Also, technology is only going to become more present in elementary classrooms and this format encourages students to use a computer in a educational and (hopefully) entertaining way.

This blog also has many areas for extension that I could easily use in the classroom as a teacher. Students could comment and write their own responses, ask the author questions, and pictures could be uploaded. I enjoyed discovering the capabilities of this blog and using the evaluative criteria from Huck's Children's Literature to summarize and study Potter's charming books.